Trash bag and Gloves

Small Flower

Hello my name Ashley Mohamad I am currently enrolled in English 1005B with Professor Hernandez. This past Saturday April 23,2017 was earth day I was fortunate to have been able to participate in cleaning the Los Angeles River with an organization called Folar. It was amazing to see many people trying to make an impact on the environment. I had always known about the LA River, but I didn't know that it was as dirty as I saw. The Folar organization provided us with plastic bags and gloves to be able to pick up the trash. The number one piece of trash that I saw around the river was plastic. It was weird to see so much trash there because people don't just go there and throw their trash. The trash that we leave on the streets go into the sewers and that trash is what lands in the river. During the time I was picking up the trash I was reminded of Jenny Price's 13 Way of Seeing Nature in La. We often think that there's no nature in out city, but in all reality nature is everywhere. While i was walking in the LA River I saw a small flower and it was so beautiful to see something so precious in the middle of trash and it reminded me that we can make a difference with something as small. This plant signifies that we have to see the positive in every negative and that out planet still has hope. I hope to keep being a part of these volunteer opportunities to make the environment a better place for generations to come. I realized that we take a lot for granted and we are very selfish because we only think of the benefits for us and not the future. In class we talked about the revitalization of the LA River and recently they opened a new park. I hope that many others join to clean the river so that we can make a difference and start the plan to make it into a park for the city to enjoy.